The Tender Trap
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: okay, this is just a funny sort of idea that i had for a ThrottlexOC romance story. So forgive me if it gets a little weird. and enjoy. Currently being re written! well- sort of
1. Chapter 1

Dedicated to inuficczy.

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Three sets of eyes stared, wide at the door way across the room, their expressions a combination of embarrassment, horror, and mortification as someone muttered, "Oh shit." Under his breath.

Two minds echoed that thought silently as they all stared at the eighteen years old human_ female_ standing in the door way with a look of shock on her pretty face, her eyes on the TV as she stared at the scene playing out on the screen of the human male and female, both fully naked- their bodies tangled together.

The female flushed as the small bowl of popcorn in one hand, slipped from her limp grasp at the same instant her coke bottle did, both hit the tile floor hard, the bowl bouncing slightly as it hit while the coke bottle shattered and sprayed glass all over her bare feet as she pointed at the TV and started to stammer out.

"W-What are you guys-" As she took a small step forward and yelped and looked down as she cut her foot on some of the sharp shards of glass, causing the guys to snap out of their state of suspended duh and turn off the TV and run across the room.

He reached her first- His gloved hands grasping her as he swept her up in his arms bridal style as the glass crunched under his heavy biker boots as he carried her out of the living room and into the bathroom, just down the hall from where they had been, and set her down on the counter top and carefully grasped the ankle of her injured foot and lifted her leg a little bit so that he could examine the bloody wound.

He lightly ran his finger tips along the bloody gnash, checking to make sure that none of the glass was embedded in her foot as he silently berated himself for letting Charlie-babe's daughter catch him and his bro's watching something so shockingly _dirty_ on one of the cable movie channels.

To be perfectly honest none of them had even known that it_ was_ a dirty movie until the woman had stripped and started undressing the man while on her knees. The sight of a female on her knees, naked, with her hands on the man's hips as she used her teeth to unzip his pants, had pretty much had them frozen in place in utter fascination until _she_ had walked in.

She was Charlie-babe's little girl, the one that they hadn't known about until three months prior when Charlie had been called away from the garage, out of town on family business after someone had died.

And when Charlie had come back, they had been sitting in the garage, waiting for her like they had promised her they would be. When she had walked in and told them very calmly (maybe a little too calmly, looking back on the incident) that she had someone that she wanted them to meet and then had pretty much dragged them outside and introduced them to the young woman who was almost an exact carbon copy of her mother.

Or at least she would have been an _exact_ carbon copy of her mother. If not for the mid back length curly black hair and the wide green eyes that held far too much innocence for a woman of her age.

Charlie had introduced the young woman as Shayera Sheena Davidson, the daughter that she had given up for adoption to her biological father Jack well over eighteen years before. They had been stunned to learn that their human,_ their_ Charlie-girl had had a child of her own _long_ before they had ever come into her life. And had been even more surprised to learn that Charlie had been keeping in touch with the girl over the years to make sure that she was being taken care of properly and now that she was finally eighteen (*cough and Jack was dead *) had finally decided to bring her home.

The mice had introduced themselves, and had been a little startled by Shay's reaction to them. The second one of them had tired to shake her hand she had made a squeaking sound and quickly hidden herself behind her mother who had just laughed and patted the girl on the head then shooed everyone inside for a night of long conversation.

It had been a little bit troubling, Shay's reaction to their presence that is, but finally after about a month of trying to bond with the girl and thinking that maybe she just didn't like them, they had finally figured out that it wasn't them.

She was just _painfully_ shy and wary around new people.

"You got yourself pretty good didn't you Shay-darlin'." He said softly as he gently pressed down a little bit on the wound and felt a small sliver of glass working it's way out of her foot. Shay made a funny sound and twitched as she bit her lip to keep from crying out as he carefully grasped the piece of glass and quickly pulled it out, earning a startled yelp from her as she slapped her hands over her mouth as two fat tears slipped down her cheeks.

Blood red eyes flickered to her face for a second as he set the bloody sliver aside then reached out and ran the back of one hand along the soft curve of one cheek for a second, absently wiping her tears away in an effort to comfort her before he started to rummage in the drawers until he found some band aids, cotton balls and them grabbed the rubbing alcohol from the medicine cabinet, in the mirror behind her and quickly unscrewed the cap and wet one of the cotton balls as his bros both peeked in.

"Hey bro, how's Shay-honey?" Modo asked as he peeked into the small bathroom, with a guilty look on his face, from the opposite side of the door from Vinny who was being uncharacteristically quiet as he watched Throttle patch their little gal up.

He looked worried to his leader, as he lightly dabbed at Shay's foot with the wet cotton ball in his hand before tossing the bloody it in the trash and grabbing one of the band aids and peeled the paper back and put it over the wound as he frowned a little bit.

He wasn't sure if the band aid was going to help any considering how deep the cut was.

It didn't really look like it needed stitches, but then again he wasn't a _medic_ and couldn't judge things like wounds very well. He tossed the paper wrapping in the trash and then reached out and grasped Shay's hands and gently pried them away from her mouth and leaned in and wrapped his arms around her and picked her up off of the counter and held her against his chest as he muttered a soft apology to her for pulling the glass shard out of her foot so suddenly.

Shay was totally still in his arms aside from the slight trembling in her limbs as he walked out of the bathroom, past his bro's, and stood out in the hallway for a second to let the others check out the wound on her foot before letting Throttle carry her on back to the living room and set her down on the couch, his tail snaking out to wrap around the ankle of her wounded foot so that it was elivated as he grabbed the remote and sat down next to her and set her wounded foot on his left upper leg and handed the remote to her.

Or at least he tried too as his bro's came walking back into the living room with a fresh bowl of pop corn (the kettle corn kind that Shay liked so much) and a warm root beer and handed them to her and muttered several soft apologies for letting her get hurt. Shay took the bowl and the root beer and sighed as Throttle set the remote in her lap. "Guys..." She started to say when Modo and Vinny both jumped to their feet with slightly panicked expressions on their faces.

"Did we forget something Shay-honey?" Modo asked as his one red eye flickered to the bloody band aid on her foot.

"Did we not apologise nicely enough? Do you want us to beg you to forgive us on our knees?" Vinny asked somberly. Shay made a funny sound and let her head drop back onto the arm of the couch as Throttle glanced at her with a bemused expression on his face. Waiting for her to say something.

Shay groaned and hid her face in her hands for a second before growling, "No-" What she wanted was for them to stop treating her like she was a kid. She was eighteen for gods sake. And they had _nothing_ to apologise for. "Dammit guys, stop apologizing. It wasn't your fault that I got hurt-"

"Yes it was. You saw what we were watching." Vinny said matter of factly. Modo nodded his head, his expression serious. Throttle still had that bemused expression on his face.

Shay lifted her head and looked at them. "You don't need to apologise for watching a porn movie for gods sake. Your...hundreds of thousands of miles from your home and your people. It's natural that you would feel certain biological functions and need to do _something_ about them. It's something that everyone does-" Shay stopped speaking as Throttle's hand closed around her ankle and he tugged on her leg, causing her to sort of slip from her semi reclining position so that he could lean over her.

His expression grim. "Everyone? Does that mean that you've watched that kind of filth at some point?" He asked in a dangerously low tone that made her blink before giggling.

"Hello, eighteen year old_ single_ adult female. Of course I have." Shay said as she stared up at the light brown furred martian. The three aliens gaped at her in shock before one of them gasped out in a thoroughly scandalized tone.

"Since when?"

"Since I turned seventeen and started to notice guys as potential_ future_ husbands." The three males got a shell shocked expression on their faces as she lightly pushed against Throttle's chest and sort of rolled herself off of the couch and got up and limped herself out of the room.

She knew that the shit was about to hit the fan and didn't want to be present when it did.


	2. Chapter 2

Charlene Davidson stared at the three brooding martian mice with an bemused expression on her face as the males paced around her garage in different directions, somehow managing to avoid each other as they each took a turn growling.

"I can't believe that Shay-babe watches filthy movies." Throttle said darkly.

"I can't believe that she's noticed men already! Aren't females only supposed to _notice_ men when they go into their reproductive cycles?" Vinny asked in an almost hysterical tone as he tripped and almost fell into the other two before righting himself.

"Oh goddess-" Modo groaned as he lifted his hands to cover his ears and shuddered while he recalled what had happened when his sister had first started to notice males. Now that had been a debacle of epic proportions! "I don't wanna think about that! I don't wanna think about that!"

"Bite your tongue Vinny before I yank the damn thing out," Throttle growled at the younger alien as he reached out and took a swipe at the white furred mouse who jumped back out of his leader's reach to avoid getting hurt. "Shay-darlin' isn't going through her reproductive cycle. She's too young!" The Commander said in a weird almost thoughtful tone, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself of what he was saying.

Charlie snorted and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at them. Oh her boys were adorable when they were clueless.

The three stopped pacing and looked over at her through narrowed eyes. "What so funny Charlie?"

"Yeah. You're her mother-"

"Doesn't this upset you any?"

Charlie bit her lower lip in an effort to keep a strait face. And failed. The three aliens moved in close and glared down at her. Unamused by the current situation. "Charlie..." Throttle said in a warning tone that he usually reserved for Modo and Vinny.

Not that she cared any. It didn't change how funny this was. Really it didn't.

She snorted, her shoulders shaking slightly with barely suppressed mirth as she weighed the pros and cons of telling them that human girls mature much faster than boys and become sexually active in their teens. On one hand, it would be funny to see how they would react to the news. Hilarious even. But on the other hand...they might get severely overprotective and make Shay's life miserable.

_Hn._ Come to think of it that wasn't much of a con since that would be pretty funny too. Oh what to do? What to do? What to-

"Charlie-girl. If you have something to say, you might as well say it. She is _your _daughter after all." Vinny said sternly as he stopped pacing in front of her and crossed his arms over his chest. Charlie shook her head no. She shouldn't do that to them. It was cruel since they all saw Shay as nothing more than a child.

But it would be even crueler to ruin their illusion and force them to see her as a woman. It would change the entire dynamic of their relationship with her. Then again it might not change anything. After a few minutes or so of holding herself back, she finally caved when they threatened to destroy her garage again. She hated it when they did that. Cleaning up the mess was one of the worst sort of tortures they could have put her through.

"Alright. Alright. But your not going to like what you hear."

"We can take it Charlie." Modo said confidently. Throttle and Vinny both nodded their heads and waited for her to say something as she sighed and ran a hand through her dark auburn hair.

"Alright guys, you win. Just don't say that I wasn't trying to protect you. The truth is that Shay...is in her reproductive cycle-" The three tensed, their expressions shocked. "The human females reproductive cycle starts fairly young. In between the ages of nine and twelve as the body grows and starts to develop. By the time the human female is thirteen the cycles get stronger-"

"But they're the strongest between the ages of sixteen and twenty. Because that's when the body is mature enough to nurture human life. Around the time the body reaches full maturity, the girl starts to notice...certain things. They notice the physical prowess of the guys around them, the way they react to things, they way they act around girls. The entire purpose of this so that they can figure out what attributes they find the most attractive in a prospective mate. For some people it's looks. for others it's strength and cunning, for some it's gentleness."

"For many, they choose safety and security for themselves and their future children. While others value their independence too much to give it up even if it is with the right guy or there are kids involved. And some simply choose poorly and pay for their bad choices in years of physical and mental abuse that isn't limited to just them. The guys that they choose beat them, make them feel worthless, some get jealous of others and rape their girlfriends in a fit to prove their ownership of them. And sometimes that person is sick enough to attack their children in the same way."

The mice were completely quiet, shell shocked expressions on their faces. Charlie was kidding right?

"Shay is old enough now to make her choices on her own, but she's led a fairly sheltered life and knows little about the things that can happen in relationships with the opposite sex. So in an effort to help her out, I've talked to her, and I even bought those dirty movies so that she could learn what was_ healthy_ in a normal relationship. Everything else that she's watched was purely out of curiosity."

"B-But S-Shay's just a l-little-" Modo stuttered in a scandalised tone as Charlie shook her head no.

"But she can't have any interest-" Again Charlie shook her head no then looked at Throttle whom was being strangely silent at the moment though his tail was thrashing around like mad in a sure sign of irritation.

Wow they really weren't taking this well. Charlie mused as she heard the soft click of heels on the tile floor outside of the garage and turned her head to look at the door as Shay stopped just in the door way.

She looked breathtaking wearing a cute little off the shoulder, long sleeved turquoise shirt, an ankle length black skirt with ruffles around the hem and little three inch black heels. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a neat braid that fell to the small of her back, and she was wearing a little silver, turquoise art glass and pearl pendant necklace with matching dangle earrings.

She had curled her bangs around her face, and was wearing a little bit of eye shadow and a soft pink lip gloss on her lips. "I'm going out for a little bit mom...whats with-"

Charlie cut her off, "Don't ask. You do not want to know. What time do you think you'll be back?"

"Dunno."

"Alright well, take the spare key just in case you get back really late."

"Alright. Night mom. G'night guys."


	3. Chapter 3

The next day the guys were prowling around the garage before Charlie and Shay were even awake, sorting through the information that Charlie had given them the night before and trying to figure out what to do.

They felt a little out of their element knowing that Shay was going through her reproductive cycle and wondered if maybe there was something in particular that they, as males, were supposed to do to make her more comfortable.

But then they didn't know how the human reproductive cycle worked exactly and the only real knowledge that they had was based on their species females.

Back on mars when a female went through her reproductive cycle she had to be drugged and tied down to keep her from attacking the men and hurting herself when she was being driven purely by her need to mate and didn't care for the answer no because of how much pain she was in up until her cycle ended. And since the men refused to take the chance of getting hurt, then mating for reproductive purposes only happened once in a while when the population dropped to dangerous, near extinct levels.

Leaving the females to suffer more than they should which left the males to compensate by trying to make the female more comfortable. They fed her delicacies that they had risked life and limb to collect and kill with their own hands. They brought her treasures of moon silk and precious stones and pampered her as a sort of apology for not stepping up to help her in the way that it _really_ counted.

All in all, it left the mice feeling a little sick to think that Shay might be in pain right at that moment and there wasn't anything that they could do (or was willing to do in the name of self preservation) to make her feel better. But on the other hand, they didn't exactly like the thought of some guy getting his dirty hands on Charlie's little girl either.

But shadowing her and keeping an eye on her might prove to be more than what they could handle.

So they were at an impasse. Sort of.

"So what's the plan bros?" Vinny asked in a hushed tone as they all huddled in the far corner of the garage, well out of...well Charlie and Shay weren't awake at the moment due to the early hour but he was a little bit paranoid that one or both might hear him.

"Well, Charlie has no problem with Shay having an interest in...uh..." Modo looked over his shoulder at the woman as she worked on the car on the lift. "_Stuff_. So the main thing that we should do is to make sure that she doesn't get interested in the wrong sort of..._stuff_."

"So we're going to keep an eye on her?" Vinny asked stupidly.

"Of course we are. We'll just have to do it in secret. At least until we know what-" Throttle's lip curled back from his teeth and he bit out the word. "_Stuff_-" Gods he absolutely loathed that word and everything that it stood for. "She's into. Once were sure that she's made a good choice on a potential mate; we'll bow out."

"But how will we know that she's made a good choice?" Vinny asked curiously and Throttle gave his bros a devious smirk.

"That's simple Vinny. We'll know she's make a good choice when the very thought of her getting so much as a hangnail terrifies her chosen male so badly that he moves out of town in_ fear_ of his life."

"Oh. So we'll be going that way. Alright. I can do that." Vinny said as he cracked his knuckles menacingly as he snickered.

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Later that day the guys were left alone at the garage with Shay while Charlie ran into town to do some errands and Shay knew that the guys were up to something because of the way that they were acting. Every time she walked into the same room with them. They jumped to their feet and rush to her side and two of them would grasp her wrists in a gentle yet firm (_very_ firm, she had been trying to fee one of her hands for forty five minutes that first time) and escorted her to one of the chairs, or seats in the room and sort of pushed her down into it and then moved to stand behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

While one of them fluffed couch pillows and put them behind her while another grabbed a blanket and wrapped her in it as another tried to massage her feet which didn't go over well since she was ticklish there and sort of accidentally kicked said martian in the head nearly giving him a cuncussion while trying to escape.

After that she managed to distract them and escape for a little while, but only for a few minutes or so and soon after that found herself tossed over Modo's shoulder and being carried into the dining room while Vinny and Throttle put some very nice looking dishes full of food down in front of her and told her to eat all she wanted. And she might have eaten, if the fact that they were watching her so closely didn't remind her of a movie she watched once on Lifetime where this guy was trying to kill his wife via poisoning her food.

So natrually she didn't feel like eating. She politely pushed the food away and told them that she wasn't hungry at the moment but she appreciated their efforts... Whatever those efforts may be. And stood up to run when Vinny blocked her way and picked her up and settled her in the crook of one arm and started rocking her back and forth while cooing in her ear and brushing her hair with the fingers of his free hand. Creeping her out a bit more than he probably intended.

All in all it was very peculiar behavior that seemed just a bit guilty to her and while she didn't really understand 'why' of it. All she knew was that they were scaring the hell out of her.


	4. Chapter 4

The second Vinny loosened his grip on her, she ran straight to the bathroom and locked herself inside knowing that the three aliens would be right behind her and she needed something solid between them. She had no sooner locked the door when she heard one of them knock. "Shay-babe are you okay?" Modo's concerned voice asked from the other side of the door as she looked around the small room for a hiding place before spotting the window.

Funny how you never notice and escape route any other time except when your scared out of your wits. She could slip out of the window and make a run for it. Chances were fairly good that they would wait twenty or thirty minutes to see if she would come out before they knocked the door down anyways, and she'd be long gone by then. "I'm..." _Going out the window and I dare any of you damn fur balls to stop me! _"Fine. I just needed to...powder my nose. You know us girls, we have to powder our noses for every little thing."

"You sound nervous-" Vinny's voice pointed out.

"Because your interrupting me and I don't want to mess up!" Shay snapped at them as she picked up a compact and threw it at the door for emphasis and watched as the compact hit, snapped open, then fell to the floor with a soft clicking sound. Damn, she had almost wished that it had broken.

She turned and walked over to the window and opened it-

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Throttle had known that Shay was taking evasive maneuvers the moment that she had run into the bathroom and locked the door to keep them out. Which was why he had silently slipped out of the apartment and around the back of the building and stopped and leaned his back against the wall just off to the side of the bathroom window and crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

The window slid open and Shay poked her upper body out and paused when she saw him. "Going somewhere darlin'?" He asked in a bored tone.

She looked like she was about to say something to him, maybe call him a bastard or something, but abruptly shut her mouth and thinned her lips and glared at him for a second. "Oh you suck so _bad_ right now-" She growled at him. He smiled at her and pushed away from the side of the building and held his hands out to her and wiggled his fingers.

"If your coming out then you better do it now. I told them to wait fifteen minutes before they kick down the door."

"Why did you tell them that?" Shay asked with a slightly panicked look on her face as she glanced back at the door and mentally tried to figure out how long she had been in the bathroom already.

"Why are you trying to sneak out of the window on us?" Throttle asked in a pleasant tone that set her teeth on edge.

"Because I keep getting this weird mental image of a big robot screaming 'Danger Will Robertson, Danger' And you guys are freaking me out with the way your acting. Just what the hell are you trying to do anyways?"

Throttle let his shades slip down a little bit to stare at her over the rim of his shades, his scarlet eyes calculating, and questioning all at once. "We're trying to take care of you... It's sort of our duty as males. Why? Is our attempt to take care of you unsatisfactory?" He asked as he studied her for a second before pushing his shades back up into place with one hand before reaching back out for her.

Shay jerked back when his hands got close and hit the back of her head on the window and bit her lower lip to keep from yelping, knowing that if she so much as made a suspicious noise; Vinny and Modo would knock the door down and start _smothering_ her in misplaced affection again.

Throttle dropped his arms a little bit, wondering why she would jerk back from him when she had never done that before, yet wasn't willing to let it bother him overly much. Right this moment anyways.

Shay had a confused look on her face as she stared down at him. What did he mean they were trying to take care of her? Duty as males?

"Throttle, what are you talking about? What duty? Why do you feel the need to take care of me? You do realize that I'm not an infant and can take care of myself right?" Throttle was quiet for a second as he considered her questions and tried to think of the best way to answer them.

"I know that your not a kid Shay." That much had been made_ painfully_ clear to him and his bros since their talk with Charlie last night.

"I also know that you care take care of yourself," _For the most part._ He added mentally as he took a small step closer. "But we feel the need to take care of you because we're stronger than you-" He didn't mean it in the I'm a man and your a weak, little woman way that most people saying those same exact words meant. He meant them in the 'I'm an alien and my species is more bad ass than yours, that's why we have to protect you' sort of way. "To us, your very delicate and fragile. Childlike even. We worry about you." Throttle said gently.

"So let me get this right. Because your stronger than the the average human you and your bros feel the obsessive compulsive need to smother the helpless little human girl in misplaced affection."

His lips twitched a little bit in amusement.

Well she almost had it right. With the exception that their affection could never be misplaced with her. To them, she was family. And affection was natural when you were in the company of someone who inspired so much warm and fuzzy feelings that you scarcely knew what to do with it all. "Something like that. Now, are you in or out? Your fifteen minutes are almost up."

Shay made a huffing sound and growled. "Fine. But if you throw me to the mice, I'll never forgive you."

Throttle grinned at her and let her climb partially out the window before he reached for her again and helped her down. His hands slipping easily under her arms and lifting her slight weight so that she could escape the window more easily. At first it was shocking to him, how little she seemed to weigh compared to him and his bro's. She felt so light, and the moment she was free he tucked her body tightly against his own and used a hand to reach up and close the window.

Let his bro's wonder how she had escaped them. For the moment, he didn't care.


	5. Chapter 5

"Your not going to take me back inside are you?"

"No. Not if you'll never forgive me," Throttle said in a slightly distracted tone as he walked with her along the side of the building to the front. "How about I take you for a ride and we can just talk instead?"

Shay gave him a slightly suspicious look. "That could be nice." Throttle hummed.

That was easy for her to say, she wasn't the one going to be hunted down and beaten by Vinny and Modo later on, but whatever. He'd survived worse. And he'd endure worse if it would make her smile.

"Cool. Wait here for a second while I get my bike." Throttle said as he grasped her slender shoulders in his hands and paused for a second to adjust his grip when he felt his fingers biting into her skin a little bit through her clothes and gently pushed her back against the side of the building and let her go before slipping around the corner.

A second or two later he reappeared with a blue motorcycle helmet in one hand and handed it to her along with a leather jacket that he had grabbed from the coat rack hanging on the wall of the garage next to the second door. She took the jacket first and slipped it on and Throttle blinked at how big the jacket was on her. He hadn't expected something so small looking to practically swallow her up in it's dark folds.

Hn. It must have been Vinny's jacket or something.

But he said nothing as she pushed the sleeves up some and took the helmet in her small hands and put it on her head and fastened the buckle under her chin and looked at him through the visor. He gave her an unreadable look and took her hand and led her over to his bike and let her climb on and get comfortable before he climbed on behind her and put on his helmet and wrapped his tail tightly around her waist so that she wouldn't fall off during any sharp turns and started up the bike.

"Here we go darlin'."

"Okay."

He manuvered the bike off of the side walk, slowly, and onto the street before speeding up. Not really knowing where he was going, just that he'd know when he got there. He took a sharp turn left and felt Shay slide a little bit in front of him and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him to hold her in place a little better and straightened the bike and kept going.

Thirty minutes later he pulled into the abandoned parking lot of an elementary school and shut his bike off and slowly released Shay so that he could get his helmet off. "What are we doing here?"

"Nothing. I've never been to a place like this, and it's as good a place as any to sit and talk. Isn't it?"

"Sure if you don't mind over looking my need to check out the merry-go-round and swing on one of the swings."

Throttle's lips curved up in a gentle smile. "Go crazy doll. Who knows I might join in the fun." He said as she pulled off her helmet and set it aside before climbing off of the motorcycle and fidgeted for a second, feeling just a little nervous about the fact that aside from the time she spent with them at home, she had never really gone anywhere with any of the three martians. Or really spoken to them on a personal level.

They had merely seemed uninterested in getting to know her as a person and more interested in other things. Like her mother, and fighting.

She didn't understand why both of those things interested them, but well, she knew her mom and didn't think she was very interesting. She was just an adult that took care of her and occasionally gave her advice on friends and such. Aside from that, they didn't really have a relationship.

And then there was the fighting...fighting wasn't all that appealing to her since she didn't like hurting others. But she could recall the time or two she had been forced to fight. Well okay-

It had been a grand total of five times. Twice was to defend her mother's honor from her own family. And the other three times had been to defend an old friend who's abusive boyfriend had chased her to the garage and tried to kill her in front of Shay.

He'd attacked her once with a knife. Shay had managed to get it away from him with a sneak attack but she had been cut up and even suffered a small stab wound to her chest. It might have been lethal if the blade had gone in any further than a scant inch or two.

He's kicked in the back door and tried to kill her friend by strangling her after knocking Shay to the ground when she had tried to jump on his back. The last time he had come with a base ball bat. And Shay had been forced to shoot him in the knee with one of her mom's guns. After that she had called 911 and taken her time and beat the crap out of him while she and her friend had waited for the police to show up.

Shay didn't like to think about her friend's bad choices in lovers because it forced her to examine how closely she had come to being killed along with her friend.

She walked across the play ground a few steps in front of Throttle and found a nice swing and made herself comfortable and started swinging while Throttle walked around her (taking a wide breadth around her so that he wouldn't get kicked) and after several minutes of making her feel nervous, finally settled his big body on the swing next to her. Which was pretty impressive since the swings were made for small, and delicately built children and in Shay's case, young adults.

Shay paused her swinging for a second to watch him awkwardly hunch his shoulders and grasp the thick chains as he tipped his head back and studied the thick wood that the swings were attached too and frowned. "This thing isn't going to fall with me in it, is it?"

"It shouldn't."

"Okay..." Throttle said as he took an experimental swing. The chains made a loud creaking sound that made his fur stand on end. He was quiet for a minute or two, his scarlet eyes flickering to the hooks holding the swing up, a slightly paranoid expression on his face. "What do you want to talk about?" He finally asked, a relieved look on his face when the swing didn't fall with him.

"Dunno. What do you want to talk about?"

Throttle thought for a moment and was sure of what he wanted to talk about when Charlie's talk with them popped into his mind and reminded him that there was still quite a bit about human rituals that he and his bros didn't know. And after their talk with Charlie, they had been tying themselves up in knots trying to figure out some of the mating rituals humans had. He could try asking her about those.

Just to test the waters a bit since he held no illusions that she might actually answer him. "W-What are human mating rituals like?"

Shay's grip on the chain slipped a little bit and she almost fell on her head. Or at least she might have if Throttle hadn't have reached out and grabbed her wrists with his hands and pulled her back up in the swing and put her hands against the chains and slipped his hands from her wrists to her hands and closed her fingers around the chains. "Sorry. I didn't expect my question to cause you to slip-" Throttle said as he gave her hands a small squeeze before he let them go and said. "You can forget about my question if you want."

Shay shook her head and blinked. "Uh... No. No, it's okay-" And once she completely got over her initial shock it would be fine. "I mean it's understandable that you would wonder about _that_. You've been on earth for a while so-" She was babbling. She knew that she was babbling yet she couldn't seem to stop herself until he reached out and put his palm against one of her cheeks, jolting her out of her own shocked thoughts so that her mind could refocus.

"Right, sorry, mating habits. Uh...what about them exactly do you want to know?"

"Everything. How do women choose a mate? What is it that the men do that draws them in?"

Shay gave a small laugh. "Depends on what you're into really."

Throttle cocked his head and gave her a curious look while she started to explain. "Women are usually encouraged to choose the guy that is like the alpha male. The strongest and fiercest. The one who is more capable of providing for them and defending them. It's a part of our genetics that goes back all the way to the beginning of time. However some women prefer intellect over strength. Others are drawn to creativity."

"Others find domestic skills in a guy a turn on. I guess because it's always good to have someone in the relationship know their way around the kitchen. Just in case. There are some who care more for money than the man. Something about being financially secure. While others prefer to have a guy who will work his fingers to the bone to provide security without sacrificing affection." Throttle's ears twitched as his mind tried to grasp at the word 'affection'. However knowing that there were many types of affection made things confusing for him.

"And affection plays a part?" He asked, thoroughly stumped.

"Of course it does. Doesn't it play a part on your planet?"

"No. Mating on Mars is more about the survival of the species. It has practically nothing to do with affection of any kind."

"That's very sad, Throttle. What does your kind do when they want to hold someone?"

Throttle thought for a second. "Well, we do- do things like that...but we generally have to knock the one we want to hold unconscious. If we don't and we try to hold them, they try to rip out our throats."

Shay gaped at him. "Oh my god Throttle, that's horrible!"

"It is?"

"Yes! Dear god. Why would anyone want to try to rip out your throat just because you want to hold them? That doesn't make any sense."

"Yes it does. My people are soldiers stuck in a war that has been going on for over a hundred of your earth years. My people are taught at a very young age that physical contact should be limited only to our young to ensure that they do not turn feral. While the adults are taught that anyone that tries to touch them is the enemy. We have it drilled into our heads to attack first and ask questions later. It's a difficult thing to suppress."

"But you don't seem to have that problem. Modo and Vinny don't seem to have that problem."

"To some extent your right. But that's only because we were part of an experiment as kids. The experiment was to cut down on the death toll because our people were killing each other just as much as our enemies were. We were born together, raised together. We played games, and were allowed to touch often without the interference of the adults until well after we had started our training. Because of that, when we were older and they tried to program us to kill just like everyone else, we were able to over ride the programming. But you should remember that just because we don't act on it, doesn't mean that it isn't there... It just take a little more to trigger it."

"I'll...try to keep that in mind." Was all Shay said for a few minutes before asking where they had left off before his explanation.

"Affection. Affection plays a part in human mating rituals." Throttle suppiled helpfully as he slowly rocked himself back and forth on his swing.

"Ah. Right. Affection-"


	6. Chapter 6

Throttle sat through the lengthy explanation without distracting her overly much and listened to everything and asked the occasional question when something in particular puzzled him. And by the time the end of the explanation rolled around he was-

Well, _shocked_ at how much affection played a part in the human mating ritual. Humans it seemed were very affectionate creatures who needed to touch and be close to one another often or they became very upset and distraught.

In a way he could understand that since he and his bros were just a little bit similar in nature due to how they had been raised as children. "And that's everything?" He asked after a few minutes of total silence while he tried to absorb the information.

"That's everything that _I_ know." Shay said as she tipped her body back a little bit and started swinging a little faster.

"So there's more? Why not just tell me everything?"

"Because I'm new to the whole..._thing_ and I have no experience in everything. What I just finished telling you is all I literally know."

"If that's true then how will you choose a mate for yourself when the time comes?" Throttle asked in a serious tone that Shay had never heard before. Shay flushed a pretty pale pink color and sputtered for a second.

"That's not any of you- Why would you ask- Because I know what I'm looking for okay!"

"And what are you looking for?" He asked curiously.

Shay opened her mouth and simply said the first thing that popped into her head before she even realised what she had said anything. "Someone who is great in the sack." Throttle went completely still on his swing and looked at her, his expression unreadable as she turned red and slapped a hand over her mouth and stared at him wide eyed horror. Oh dear god why had she said that? It wasn't even true!

Granted that she wouldn't mind finding herself a guy who was good in bed but there was always more to a relationship than that. And relationships that were purely carnal never really worked because there was no depth to them.

"I'm so sorry Throttle, I didn't mean to say that-" She hastily said to assure him that she had been joking with him and nothing else. But the mouse's sense of humor seemed to have suddenly left him. Because he found nothing funny about what she'd just said after she had just sat here for over an hour and explained things to him.

"Oh?" Throttle asked in a dangerously low voice. His body was tense. Almost like he was getting ready to get out of his swing and jerk her out of her own. _Jeez, he's acting like a father who just caught his little girl with her hand on a guy's crotch or something. _

"I wasn't really paying attention and said the first thing popped into my mind."

"Then you aren't looking for _just_ a carnal relationship?"

"What? No! I mean, having a guy that knows what he's doing in the bedroom would be nice but...that isn't all that I'm looking for," She said as he took his shades off and gave her a pointed look causing her to bristle a bit as she said in a defensive tone, "Well it's true! I want a guy who's quiet. Sort of shy. I'd like it if he had good manners and was smart and caring-" Shay started to blush and fidget. Naming off a list of attributes in a potential mate to Throttle was embarrassing to her for some reason. Yet she couldn't seem to stop herself. "He has to know how to treat a lady and take care of her. I don't want him to be the jealous type though. Jealous types are dangerous-" Shay said as she rubbed the stab wound on her chest, under her shirt. A habit that she had developed a while back when she was feeling nervous.

Throttle's eyes caught the nervous movement and narrowed a bit as he was about to ask her why she was rubbing her chest when she cut him off and asked in an anxious tone, "You know what? I don't really want to talk about this anymore. Can we change the subject please?"

Throttle was quiet for a second as he nodded his head, his mind already going over the small list of attributes that she had given him and started to mentally fill in the blanks. "Sure. What do you want to talk about now?"

"Have you watched any good movies?"

Throttle's lips curved up in a small, tight lipped smile at her choice in subject. The girl certainly knew how to distract a guy from what was bugging him, he'd give her that. "Yeah actually, there was this great zombie movie on the other night-"

They sat there talking for what seemed like forever, but was actually only two or three hours. The sky darkened and the temperature dropped and about the time Throttle and Shay were on his bike and ready to go back; his bros showed up looking a little peeved and escorted them back to the garage to drop Shay off before interrogating him and knocking him around a little bit before calling it a night.


	7. Chapter 7

The next day the guys came by the garage at about noon since Throttle had been having a little bit of trouble dragging himself out of bed because two of his ribs were just a little sore from Modo and Vinny's retaliation for what he had done last night.

They pulled up to the curb on their bikes and paused when they saw one of the windows on the apartment door was broken and the door itself looked like someone had kicked it in. "What the hell?" Modo muttered as he took off his helmet and got off of his bike at the same time Vinny and Throttle did and made their way over to the door and studied it for a seconds.

Under the broken glass the white paint had been chipped away by something that had left fist and foot sized indention's in the metal, warping it slightly. Worried that something might have happened to Charlie and Shay the three tensed as they pushed the door open and slipped inside. "Charlie! Shay!" Vinny called out as Modo gently closed the door as best as he could without doing further damage to it as Charlie poked her head out of the garage.

"Hey guys." She said in a tired tone as she reached up and rubbed her eyes.

"Charlie-babe, what happened to the door?" Modo asked as they walked over to her and each took turns giving her a hug as they looked around. There were two pictures missing from their place, several holes in the wall that hadn't been there before, there was a dented and bloody looking folding chair resting against the wall next to the door leading to the garage well with in Charlie's reach.

Charlie sighed and ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair, pushing some of the strands back from her face to reveal the four little bloody band aids covering the deep gnash going along her hair line and the faint yellowish purple bruise on her left cheek as she tried to figure out what to tell them. She doubted that they would like the truth.

That one of Shay's friends had for some unknown reason dragged Shay into one of her disputes with her angry boyfriend and the guy had decided that he was going to beat the ever loving hell out of Shay just for the fun of it. And after putting his girlfriend in the hospital he had come looking for her daughter to do the same to her.

It hadn't ended well for anyone when he had come through the door. Charlie had been hit and thrown against one of the walls just down the hall, outside of her bedroom and Shay...

Well Shay had been MIA since the incident and Charlie had no idea if the bastard had taken her with him when he left or what. All she knew was that when she woke up there had been a small pool of blood on the floor and a little more damage to her walls than she recalled.

And on top of that one of her bikes and the gun from the lock box in her bedroom closet were both gone along with a handful bullets for the gun. So while it was fairly safe to assume that Shay had those things and had left while she could. She couldn't honestly assume anything. All she could do was hope that her baby was locked and loaded and possibly even holed up somewhere in _one_ piece.

While that _asshole _was somewhere out there looking for her. "Charlie what happened to your face? Did someone hit you?" Vinny asked as he gently ran his finger tips along the curve of her bruised cheek. She winched slightly and grasped his hand and squeezed it.

"There was a little incident last night after you guys dropped Shay off."

"An incident?"

"Where is Shay?" Throttle asked anxiously as he glanced down the hall towards Shay's room. His gut felt like it had molten lead settled in it. Why hadn't Shay answered Vinny's call yet? He wondered worriedly.

Charlie looked at him as he glanced back at her. She stared at him for a second and shook her head, her expression grim, and Throttle's heart almost stopped beating. "Tell us what happened Charlie and make it fast-" Vinny said as Modo reached out and grasped Throttle's arm to keep him from going anywhere when he started to move away.

"Alright. At about six this morning some guy that has been dating one of Shay's friends came and kicked in the door yelling and screaming about beating 'the little black haired bitch' to teach her her place. He woke me up and I went to stop him-and was smacked pretty hard then thrown into the wall and knocked out... And I don't know what happened after that. Shay is missing along with one of my bikes and the gun from my lock box and some bullets, and I don't know if she managed to get away okay, or if she's hurt-" Charlie rubbed her eyes again and tried to hold back her tears, and up until now she'd been doing pretty good at holding her tears back.

But now that she had told them what had happened, for some reason she couldn't hold herself back any more. The three martians stood there in shocked silence for a moment before it fully registered what Charlie was saying to them.

Someone had attacked her. Someone had maybe even attacked Shay.

Their family was being threatened-

"You got a tracking device for the bike?"

"Yeah I think so."

"Get it for us." Throttle said in a low tone laced with barely contained rage. Charlie blinked at him and nodded her head and disappeared back into the garage for a second and got the small tracking unit that she had made for her bikes after one too many thefts and walked back over to the door and handed it to Modo as Throttle said in a deadly serious tone.

"Don't you worry none Charlie. We'll bring Shay darlin' back and we'll deal with that bastard chasing her too."


	8. Chapter 8

Shay was in trouble. Possibly the worst trouble that she had ever been in before in her life.

Sara's boyfriend Tony had finally snapped and come after her.

He had attacked her mother. Had damaged the apartment and tried to kill her with a broken piece of glass. But that wasn't why she was in trouble.

No that was only half of it. The rest of the reason that she was in trouble could be broken down into two parts. 1) The piece of glass had split her wrist open and cut one of her veins, and though she had managed to stop the bleeding long ago, the wound was infected and she was already running a high fever of over a hundred and four that made it hard to focus.

She knew that she needed medical attention to get rid of the infection before she got a staff infection or gangrene, but she couldn't move from where she was. It was simply too difficult.

Her body was working against her. Her legs were weak, her head was spinning, her joints ached.

And 2) To make her situation worse, Tony had called his cop dad and filed her mother's bike as stolen and had his cop friends looking for her. Which meant that if she was found by any of them she would be put in handcuffs and handed over to Tony to do with her whatever he wanted. His friends would neither lift a hand to help him, nor would they lift a hand to help her.

The only truly comforting fact about knowing this was that they were however duty bound to keep Tony from killing her. At least while they were present, but if he could convince them that he wasn't going to hurt her and send them away she was fucked.

And since she knew these things, she had hidden herself (and her moms bike) in an abandoned old brick warehouse ten miles from the garage along the water front. Unfortunately Tony and his buddies in blue were swarming all over the place looking for her. She had heard them checking every old building around the area and knew that they were closing in on her.

Her hands shook violently as she loaded the gun that she had taken from her mom's lock box. The tremors shaking her entire body so badly that her teeth were chattering, and the bullets kept slipping form her grasp and clattering to the floor. It was annoying really, and after several tries she made a small annoyed sound and dropped the weapon. Figuring that if things got really bad she could just chuck the damn thing at someones head.

She curled her legs against her chest in an effort to keep herself from shaking so badly and rested her head on her knees and before she knew it she had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

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"Modo, how much farther?" Throttle asked as they rode their bikes towards the warehouse district along the water front.

"Not much further. About a two miles. According to this thing the bike isn't moving so maybe she's hiding out in one of the warehouses."

"Seems most likely-" Vinny said as they entered the fenced in area and slowed down a little bit when they saw six or seven police cars parked in a row across from a fiery red convertible. "What the hell is this?" Vinny hissed, anxiousness coloring his tone. It was never a good thing to see this many cops in one place.

"Dunno. How about we ask someone whats going on?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"Yeah it might be useful to know if there's a dangerous criminal on the loose." Modo said as they took a second to locate the officers. The cops were standing in a circle with a guy that looked like a body builder, with dark hair, eyes and olive colored skin; dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans.

The mice pulled up to them and flipped up their visors. "Excuse me officers. But is everything okay here?" Modo asked one of the men in uniform. Several people looked at them for a second then turned their attention back to the body builder and ignored them.

Vinny made an annoyed sound and was about to flip his visor down when they heard the body builder say, "Okay, we've checked here and here and...here. Davidson is around here somewhere. I want three of you to check here-" The mice tensed on their bikes and listened as the guy pointed to one of the buildings that they hadn't checked yet then to another and another. "Remember that the bitch may be armed. So if you have to use your tasers, then do it. But I want her in one piece..."

Throttle made a growling sound and flipped his visor down and turned his bike so that his tires were pointed in the body builders direction and then revved the motor so that the tires spun wildly, digging into the dirt and flinging it at the group, jolting them out of their little meeting as Throttle sped away, his bros sat there for a second staring after him in shock before riding after him.

"Bro, what was that about?"

"Weren't you listening? That body builder guy is looking for Shay."

"Yeah, I heard that but-"

"Idiot, don't you get it. That guy means to hurt her. And he's recruited the local boys in blue to help him find and catch her." Throttle growled.

"How do you know that's what he's done? He may be here to help."

"If he were really here to help he wouldn't have said for the officers to use their tasers on her."

"So now we have to find her and get her out of here before our friends in blue and that guy find her."

"Basically."

They were quiet for a second before Vinny asked. "What do we do if she's hurt?"

"She better not be." Came Modo's automatic reply.

"But what if she is?" Vinny asked again, sounding more worried than he had in a long, long time. He knew that there had to be reason why Shay hadn't contacted her mother this morning after fleeing the apartment and he just couldn't shake the feeling that she may be wounded somewhere.

"If she is then the body of the one responsible for hurting her will _never_ be found." Throttle hissed angrily.

"_Agreed_." Both Modo and Vinny said before Modo called them to a stop in front of a large three story red brick building.

"The bike is in there somewhere." Modo said as he parked his bike and pulled his helmet off. Throttle parked his bike and jerked off his helmet and got up off of his bike and started walking towards the building as Vinny parked his bike and nearly tripped himself trying to get off of his bike so that he could follow after Throttle and Modo.


	9. Chapter 9

The guys split up once they were inside the building, after slipping in through a broken pad locked door around the side, so that they could systematically check the building. Vinny took the ground level. Modo took the second floor, and Throttle took the third floor.

They pushed open doors, turned over rickety old furniture and finally after the other lower floors had been cleared, Throttle found Shay curled up with her knees against her chest against the farthest corner of the wall in the very last room on the third floor, her head was down and she was shaking and breathing oddly. "Shay..." He breathed her name as he shoved old desks and chairs out of his way and all but jumped over one piece of furniture just to reach her.

And the second he did, he reached out and ran a slightly shaky hand through her dark hair and frowned when she didn't respond to his touch and look at him like she normally would. "Shay? Sweetheart, it's me. Throttle. You can hear me right?" He asked as he grasped one of her ankles and gently tugged on it so that her leg came away from her body, causing her to tip sideways at an awkward angle, alarming him.

He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from pitching over sideways and paused when he saw one of her arms as it settled on her upper leg. The wrist of her right arm was wrapped in a bloody kerchief that was tightly knotted and there was dry blood on her hand and on her arm around the kerchief. Curious to see just how badly she was wounded, he carefully grasped her arm under the kerchief and turned her arm slightly and let out an angry hissing sound as he took in the bone deep gnash in her hand.

_Son of a bitch-_

It looked like Chicago was going to have one more person mysteriously disappear with in the next few days or so. But first thing was first, he needed to know how badly Shay was hurt because she wasn't responding to him, then he and his bros needed to get her away from here and maybe to a hospital to have her checked out.

He wrapped his tail around her arm where his hand was and slowly untied the kerchief a little bit and froze when Shay made a distressed sound as blood started running down her hand from someplace under the bloody fabric.

_Shit_, he hadn't meant to make her bleed, but obviously he hadn't taken into account that the bloody fabric had been fused to her skin. He retied the kerchief and reached up to his own neck and untied the blood red bandanna that he wore around his neck and ripped it in two as he heard the faint sounds of Vinny and Modo running down the hall to the room that he and Shay were in.

"Throttle!"

"In here! Shay's hurt!" Throttle called back as he took one torn piece of his bandanna and used it to wrap her wounded hand and tied it off as tightly as he dared before using the rest to take the place of the bloody kerchief and got a small, brief glimpse of the wound on her wrist and felt his heart leap up into his throat as he re wrapped her wrist as his bros came in and practically ran over to them. Their expressions a combination of worry, concern and rage.

"How bad is she hurt?"

"I can't be totally sure but I think one of the in her wrist arteries was either nicked or cut. I'm not sure how much blood she lost...but it doesn't look to be much-" _Yet._ Throttle thought darkly as he pictured _all_ of the terrible things he and his bros were going to do to the bastard responsible for hurting Shay.

"She needs medical attention." Modo said.

Throttle made a humming sound as he tied off the make shift bandage and then reached out and slipped an arm around her shoulders and the other under her legs and picked her up as Vinny picked up the small hand gun sitting that had been on the floor next to her and slipped it in the back of his pants at the small of his back as Throttle stood up with Shay cradled in his arms, his expression pained as he caught sight of her pale sweat dampened face.

Oh gods, there was something horribly, _horribly_ wrong with her wasn't there? He'd never seen her face look so pale. It was practically chalk white! There was a strained look on her face, as if the fact that she was breathing was just so painful. And her breathing was labored in an unnatural way.

"We better get her out of here now-" He said in a shaky tone as he turned and started to make his way across the floor, his bros falling into step behind him.


	10. Chapter 10

Throttle climbed on his bike with Shay cradled in his arms and automatically wrapped his tail around her as Vinny popped the button on the secret compartment under his seat and dug out a black and red soft wool jacket and quickly walked over to Throttle while he worked on making Shay as comfortable and safe as he could.

He would be driving faster than normal and wanted to make sure that she was wearing her helmet, and her wounded arm was settled in a way that wouldn't hurt her. "Throttle, here. Wrap this around her." Vinny said as he gave Throttle's shoulder a slight push to gain his attention.

Throttle blinked and did a double take then took the jacket from him and glanced down at Shay who was shaking almost violently in his arms.

Vinny put his hands under Shay's shoulders to hold her upright while Throttle wrapped the jacket around her and once Vinny's hands were out of the way, he made sure to zip the dark fabric closed so that her body heat could absorb into the jacket and keep her warm while Vinny moved back to his bike and put his seat down as Throttle pulled Shay as close to him as he could and put his helmet on then slipped an arm around her shoulders and started his bike.

"Vinny. Modo you two ride ahead of me just in case those cops are around. I'll need you two to clear the way if they try to stop us."

"Can do."

"With pleasure bro."

Modo and Vinny started their bikes and waited for Throttle to give them the signal before ridding ahead a little ways while Throttle pulled up the rear, his scarlet eyes scanning the areas to his left and right as they rode through the warehouse district.

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They took the shortest route to the hospital while avoiding conflict with the boys in blue. Which was good since it shaved twenty something odd minutes off of their trip and caused them to get Shay the help she needed sooner.

And from the way the doctors and nurses had been running back and forth for the past two hours the mice figured that this was a very, very good thing. Vinny hung up the phone across the room and walked back over to where Modo and Throttle were sitting and sighed and ran his hands over his face out of nervous habit. He hated waiting. They all did.

It made them feel useless.

But in this instance it was all anyone could do. "Is Charlie on her way here?" Throttle asked as he leaned forward in his seat a little bit and rested his elbows on his knees.

"Yeah. She's coming."

"Did you tell her anything about the wounds?"

"Yeah... She didn't sound surprised, but she didn't seem overly worried about the wounds either."

"Probably because the wounds alone aren't fatal unless they go without being cared for. From what I saw, Shay had to choose to treat the more serious wound over the other."

Modo and Vinny didn't say anything as a nurse came walking up. The three mice turned their heads and looked at her, wondering if she was going to tell them something about Shay. Each one anxiously holding their breath. "Are you the guys who brought Miss Davidson in?" The woman asked as she looked at the chart in her hands.

"We are." Modo said in a tense tone as he stared at the woman with one red eye. The woman made a funny little sound and looked nervous all of a sudden.

"Um. Well...Miss Davidson's hand was fixed and right now she is being prepped for surgery to fix the damage done to her wrist and repair the artery. She's lost about a pint of blood which we've started to replace with a blood transfusion-" She paused to look at the chart in her hand again, a frown working it's way across her face.

"And we've found slight traces of an infection in her blood that has caused her to start running a dangerously high fever. We're giving her anti-biotics to help her fight off the infection, but we won't really know anything until later on. After her wrist is fixed she'll be put in a room and she'll probably have to stay for a few days for observations. At least until her fever breaks."

"So...she'll be okay?" Vinny asked in a worried tone. The nurse looked away from the chart and smiled at them.

"As long as her fever breaks and she get some rest, she should be fine."


	11. Chapter 11

The guys were going crazy in the hospital waiting room, waiting on someone to come and tell them that Shay was out of surgery.

Modo was fidgeting anxiously, alternating between chewing on the tip of his tail and chewing his finger nails. Vinny was cleaning under his finger nails with a small pocket knife, his tail thrashing wildly, scattering the magazines and cutting some leaves off of the potted plant next to him, the only real out ward sign of his distress.

And Throttle...

God you could feel his fury inhabiting the space in the waiting room. Like an actual living breathing thing, coiled somewhere under his skin like a great big snake ready to strike.

Charlie shook her head, feeling a little bit rattled by the fury that Throttle was projecting. It was such a horrible and blood thirsty feeling that Charlie absolutely knew without a doubt that Sara's boyfriend would soon be on the missing person's list in the local police station.

She wished that she could say that she felt badly for the young man. But he had attacked her, and he had tried to hurt her daughter. So she didn't really feel anything aside from grim satisfaction at the thought of him disappearing without a trace.

And she knew her boys well enough to know that once they were done killing him, they'd probably transport his remains to Mars to let the sand spiders pick his bones clean. She sighed and sat back in her seat a little bit, her seat creaking softly as she shifted her weight. The sound causing every mouse in the room to go perfectly still (except for Throttle, he had been still and unmoving ever since sitting down four hours ago).

"How much longer are those doctors going to take?" Vinny asked as he flicked his knife closed and slipped it back in his pants pocket.

"That depends on how long it takes for the blood transfusion to finish. They may have had to give her an extra bag or two when they were fixing the artery in her wrist." Charlie said tiredly as she leaned her head back against the back of her seat.

"Why?" Modo asked curiously, wondering why the doctors may need to give Shay more blood when they were supposed to be fixing her wrist.

"Because Shay's artery may be too small for them to seal back together easily. The vein may split of it may retract into her arm and she could start hemorrhaging. And if that happens she could die if she bleeds too much."

The guys were quiet for a second before Throttle got up, slowly unfolding his big body from the small hospital chair. "Shay had better not die-" Was all he said before stuffing his hands in his pants pockets and walking away. He needed to get some air before he had a serious melt down.

All the waiting was causing him to play the 'what if' game with himself and so far he wasn't liking the answers to his own questions.

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Charlie was lost in a world of her own thoughts as she watched Throttle walk away.

The poor guy felt guilty, and furious about what had happened to Shay. He probably even blamed himself on a sub conscious level, though he probably didn't realize it.

But Charlie knew why. She had seen Throttle's recent attempts to bond with Shay and though he was being subtle and wasn't aware of it; Charlie had noticed the changes in his mood and behavior when he was around her daughter.

She had even caught him staring at Shay on occasion with a wistful look on his face before he would look away again and pretend that he hadn't bothered to look at all. She had even noticed the possessive way he touched Shay and watched over her when they were sitting on the couch watching TV together or when he would sometimes find Shay asleep on the couch in the living room.

Like she had caught him doing last Tuesday after he had come to the garage to hang out after a long day of kicking Limberger's butt. She remembered walking by the living room and seeing Throttle out of the corner of her eye and had stopped to see what he was doing because something had struck her as _strange_.

He had been sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch, his chin propped up in his hand, his shades had been taken off and lain aside and he was staring down at Shay's face with such a soft almost_ loving_ expression on his face that she had felt as if she were a peeping tom peering through a window, at something that she wasn't supposed to see.

Which was why she had turned around and gone back to the garage and tried to sort out what she had seen.

It wasn't until the other night when the guys had been prowling around her garage though that she had realized what was going on with Throttle.

He was either half in love with Shay or he was completely in love with her and simply didn't seem to know how to go about making his feeling known. Or maybe he felt it was best not to make his feelings known, period.

Which was why she had decided to help him along. God knew that Shay needed a good guy in her life to take care of her. And Throttle was a _fantastic_, _sweet_, and_ gentle_ guy. Any girl would be happy to have him.

But only Shay would.

Charlie intended to use the current situation to manipulate them into being together.


	12. Chapter 12

A few hours later-

The guys pushed the door to room two hundred and sixteen and peeked in at the still figure laying in the hospital bed. Shay was out cold, her face was still pale, though they were a little bit relieved to note that it wasn't _as_ pale as it had been when they had found her. There was an IV hooked to one arm and the hand and wrist of the other was wrapped tightly in fresh, _clean_ bandages. Shay lay on her back on the narrow little bed, a little scooted down, her head just barely resting on the pillow, several thin hospital blankets were piled on the bed and pulled up around the girl's shoulders.

All and all she looked much better, and even seemed to be breathing and resting more comfortably.

The three pushed the door open a little more and silently slipped inside and stood around her bed for a second or so, absent mindedly checking the IV, the machines monitoring her heart and respiration. "She seems better."

"She isn't. She just seems like it because she's gotten the medical attention she needed. She won't be completely better until she's home where she belongs." Vinny said as he reached over and smoothed some of her dark hair away from her face.

"I know that-" Modo snapped at the younger alien before softening his tone. His one red eye on Shay's face, his expression lacking the harsh appearance he had worn earlier. "I meant that she looked a little better. Her color. See." He said as he ran the back of his robotic hand along the curve of her cheek as door opened behind them and Charlie slipped in carrying a bag of what smelled like hot dogs with everything on them and another, brown paper bag and handed them to Vinny who quickly went through them and kissed her on the cheek.

"Alright. Food and root beers, thank doll."

"No problem. I figured that since you guys were still here when I left that you might want something for a late lunch." Charlie said as she walked around Shay's bed and checked the machines, then the IV. Then sat down in the chair against the wall, next to the bed and sighed.

"Are you okay Charlie-girl?" Throttle asked as Vinny thrust a styrofoam box in his hands. Throttle looked down at the little box for a second as if he were surprised to find himself holding it then glanced back at Charlie.

"I'm fine Throttle I just wish..." All three aliens looked at the woman, curious expressions on their faces. What was on their Charlie's mind? They wondered before she finished speaking. "That Shay had someone who could watch her and keep her out of trouble. Like a really, really close friend, or a boyfriend or something. God knows that I'm not going to live forever." She said as she leaned her head back against the chair.

"Don't say that Charlie-girl-" Vinny said as he set his food and drink down on the little table next to Shay's bed and walked around to where Charlie was and knelt down in front of her and took one of her hands in his and squeezed it.

"Yeah, Charlie. You shouldn't say things like that. It's upsetting. And besides she has us."

"I know. But look at things from my point of view. Shay is my _only_ daughter. And for the past few years, she's had to deal with Tony and Sara's relationship issues and I'm very afraid that after this crap is over and done with that she'll lose all interest in settling down."

"Is having Shay settle down really that important?" Modo asked curiously as he took a bite of his hot dog.

"Of course it is. Every parent dreams of the day that their children settle down. Because it means that we don't have to worry about them anymore."

"Really? That's how things work?" Vinny asked with more than just a little bit of casual interest. Hearing about the mating habits of other creatures was a fascinating past time for the three since it helped them learn what things to _engage_ in if they wanted to mate with one of the locals as well as what they should _avoid_ if they didn't want to mate.

"Well yes in a round about way. But..." Charlie stopped speaking and looked at Shay with such a sad look on her face. "My poor baby has only seen the bad side of relationships. The pain and suffering that comes from baring your heart and soul to another person...and having them betray you in one of the worst ways imaginable. I don't think she's going to be very interested in such things after this. And I'm so _scared_ that she's going to be like me-" Charlie said as her filled with tears.

The three aliens were quiet for a moment or two, just slightly horrified that _their_ human- _their_ Charlie would break down now of all times and start crying. "Come on Charlie-babe, don't cry. Everything will be fine. You and Shay will always have us no matter what happens." Vinny said as he put his hands on the woman's knees. Charlie didn't respond to his words, if anything they only seemed to make her cry harder until finally Modo said.

"If having Shay settle down is so important to you Charlie-sweetheart then one of us will marry her." Both Throttle and Vinny turned their heads to glare at the elder of the group. He _did not_ just swear that one of them would marry their human friends daughter.

Na-uh, no way.

Charlie cried harder and the three silently communicated through a series of dark looks and scowls until finally Throttle sighed.

Fuck, they were getting nowhere fast and Charile just kept crying more and more. It was heart breaking to them. So one of them would have to concede defeat and man up.

Unfortunately Vinny made the mistake of telling Charlie that she could pick which one of them got the honor of marrying her daughter and the next thing they all knew, Charlie lifted her head and looked at them all and grinned then pointed at Throttle and said. "You'll do." To which the three mice gaped at their friend in shock, horror and outrage as Throttle was named Shay's future husband by the conniving woman.

_Goddamn it._ Throttle thought as he glared at the woman as she stood up and walked over to him and put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a cheeky grin and said. "You'll make such a great son in law. I want at least a dozen grand kids by the way-" Then patted him on the cheek and walked out the door while they continued to gape.


	13. Chapter 13

Vinny and Modo managed to recover first, the both of them shut their mouths and looked at him apologetically while his mind came to a screeching halt. He spent ten minutes or so trying to convince himself that he was asleep and this was just a really weird dream, then he moved on and spent another twenty minutes in denial.

Charlie wouldn't let her daughter, the precious child of her womb marry one of them. They were aliens for fuck sake! How did Charlie know that he wouldn't eat Shay alive or something? Sure it was a ridiculous thought, but for all Charlie_ knew_ that's how his kind mated.

He silently argued with himself for another twenty minutes as reality slowly (_very slowly_) sank in before he got pissed at his bros for the small part that they had played in him being picked as husband material.

Sure he knew that it wasn't really their fault, they had been suckered by Charlie too. But the fact remained that they had set him up, however unintentional.

And that upset him so much that he cracked their heads together the second he snapped out of it then grabbed both of their tails and tied them in a knot that they wouldn't be able to escape anytime soon. Then he dragged the two kicking and cursing aliens across the room to the door, and tossed them out into the hall way, and then slammed the door.

Then growled low in his throat before realizing that he was still in the room with Shay and that he needed to settle down or he might accidentally topple over her bed or something and hurt her if he didn't calm himself down. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to calm himself.

It helped when he thought about how Shay might_ feel_ to being married off to him since she was just as much an innocent bystander in this mess as he was, and calmed himself and made his way over to the bed and used his tail to drag the chair that Charlie had been using earlier and across the floor and positioned it so that he would be sitting next to the bed, facing Shay.

And sat down and made himself comfortable so that he could try and think of a way out of this...arranged marriage that Charlie (_ohhh_ he was going to give her a piece of his mind later) had manipulated him into. He glanced at Shay and sighed.

Goddess what could be going through Charlie's head that would cause her to do this to Shay?

Didn't she think her daughter _deserved_ to have the affection that Shay had told him was so_ important_ to their kind? What was he supposed to say to her when she woke up?

He got a strange fluttering feeling in his stomach and nervously wiped his hands on his pants, pausing briefly to dig his finger nails into his thighs when Shay stirred slightly on the bed. His eyes went to her face as he stilled. Panicking slightly, yet calmed when Shay settled back down on the bed and shivered as if she were cold.

He stood up and moved over to the bed and put his hand against her forehead, recalling what the nurse earlier had said about Shay having a fever.

He knew what the word meant, he just didn't know how to check for it. Or maybe he had trouble checking for it because his own body temperature stayed at a constant one hundred and ninety degrees due to the hash atmosphere of Mars.

He didn't really know, all he knew was that she felt..._off_ to him. He slipped his hand from her forehead to her cheek and nearly jumped out of his skin when she turned her head and sort of buried her face against his palm.

His fur stood on end for a second and his shades slipped down his nose a little bit as she rubbed her cheek against his hand for a second then seemed to settle back down with her face buried against his fingers.

If he could've, Throttle would have blushed red at the intimacy of the small contact. But since he couldn't blush, he had to settle for looking a little shell shocked/embarrassed. He wasn't sure how long he stood like that, all he knew was the strange surge of happiness and contentment that he felt when he finally seemed to snap out of his funk. His scarlet eyes studying Shay as she slept.

She really was such a sweet, kind,_ beautiful_ girl.

Maybe he could keep her mothers manipulation to himself for the time being and see what happened.


	14. Chapter 14

Charlie never came back to the room after the stunt she had pulled on him. A smart move, Throttle guessed stemmed from the fact that she was trying to give him time to come to terms with the idea of marrying Shay.

Not that he was seriously considering it or anything. He wasn't. He felt that a relationship with Shay would simply be too taboo.

Vinny and Modo came back, once, with some food and root beers and several heart felt apologies before they left again. Leaving Throttle alone with Shay for the rest of the night and a majority of the next day before she finally woke up.

He had been sitting back in the chair, with Shay in his arms for the past six or seven hours. Just holding her after what had happened earlier that morning when her fever had spiked dangerously, causing her to start crying in her sleep, when he felt her stir slightly and looked down at her as her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him with glazed eyes.

"Throttle?" She rasped in a hoarse voice as he smiled down at her.

"Hey sweetheart. How are you feeling?" He asked as he brushed some of her hair back away from her face. She closed her eyes for a second and seemed to be struggling just to stay awake. The thought of Shay having to struggle with something so simple terrified him on some level. He had never realized how _weak_ illness could make her.

But she was a fighter, the fact that she could manage to open her eyes again when she obviously just wanted to go back to sleep, was proof of that fact. "My wrist hurts...head hurts..." She frowned and blinked her eyes a few times and gasped. "Everything hurts." His smile became a little strained as his heart gave a painful squeeze in his chest.

"I'm sorry darlin'." He said softly as he ran his fingers through her hair a little more, combing it back some. She made a soft, broken humming sound and let her eyes drift closed again and muttered.

"Tired..."

"Then go back to sleep." Throttle said gently. Shay looked up at him and started to shake her head no, but stopped when her head started hurting even more and the room started to spin.

"I shouldn't... Need to stay awake... Tony will come-" Throttle stiffened a little bit and forced himself to relax so that he wouldn't squeeze her or hurt her and started to run his fingers through her hair again. _Tony, huh_? Throttle mused.

That must be the name of the guy that had hurt her and her mother.

He glanced down at her again and noted that she was still struggling to stay awake, obviously too worried to let herself go back to sleep. He snorted. Did she really think that he would let something happen to her?

Did she think that he would really leave her in such a vulnerable state? Knowing the danger that could come for her at any second. "You can close your eyes darlin'. I won't let _anyone_ lay a finger on you." He said as he pulled the blankets up around her a little bit then shifted his hold on her so that she was leaning against him a little more, her head resting on his shoulder.

"But you might- I don't want you to-" Shay started to say as he put his hand over her eyes and made a hushing sound then started to hum something as she lifted a hand and weakly tried to force his hand away from her face.

"Throttle. No fair- Stop... I don wanna go to sleep- I don't want you to get- Hurt..." Shay's voice trailed off and after a moment or so her breathing pattern changed and he slowly moved his hand away from her eyes and chuckled when he noted that she was sound asleep already.

"Silly girl-" Throttle said in amusement. As he thought over what she had said about not wanting him to get hurt. As sweet as the fact that she was worried about his well being was, it was totally wasted on him. The only person who would get hurt was 'Tony' if he was stupid enough to show up.

He shifted his hold on her and stood up and gently placed her back on her bed and pulled the covers up around her, the sudden need to move around fueling his actions. Besides a nurse would be in soon to give Shay something for her fever and he couldn't be holding her when that happened.


	15. Chapter 15

Throttle made sure to stay out of the way when the nurses came in and took down the bags of blood and replaced them with two bags of clear liquid. To help keep her from getting dehydrated, one of the women said as she hung the bags up. While the other woman checked Shay's temperature and woke her up long enough to give her some three white tablets in a plastic cup and asked her if she had to-

Throttles mind sort of shut down for about ten minutes as he took up some space across the room at the window, checking out the pretty birds flying around far he had spotted a dove, a blue jay, and a sparrow- He watched the sparrow fly around for a second before there was an audible thump of a small body hitting the window causing him to jump a little bit and look down as the little sparrow's body hit a ledge a few feet under the window and Throttle's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he pulled the curtain.

_That poor sparrow_. He thought.

While the two women helped Shay to and from the bathroom and got her comfortable in the bed again so that they could clean the wounds on her hand and wrist and re wrap them, while one of the women asked Shay if she was feeling well enough to try and eat something. And composed a breakfast menu for the girl before they finished up and left.

Tapping him on the shoulder before they left the room to let him know that they were done and leaving.

Throttle ran his fingers through his soft brown hair and walked back over to the bed and started to fuss with the covers when Shay's eyes opened and she looked up at him, causing him to freeze and flush a _vivid_ red under his fur at being caught in nursing mode.

Honestly this was probably the most embarrassed he had ever been before in his life aside from the time he had accidentally walked in on Charlie while she had been in the shower. The close second to that memory was the other day when Shay had walked in on him and his bros watching that _horrible_ dirty movie.

Shay looked at him for a second and giggled. "Your blushing."

He made a funny little 'grring' sound and glared at her for a second then shrugged off her words and pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and put his hand against her forehead and blinked, feeling just a little bit stunned by how cool she felt to the touch. "And you must be feeling better. Your cooler than you were several hours ago."

Shay made a humming sound and turned her head into his hand and closed her eyes. Still feeling a little bit drowsy. "Have you been here the whole time?" She asked curiously as she opened her eyes and looked at him.

Throttle gave her a small smile. "Yeah. The others had...errands to run and left me with you just in case."

"I'm sorry Throttle." Shay said softly as he frowned.

"For what?"

"For causing so much trouble..."

He snorted. He'd known that Shay would be trouble with a capital T the day that he and the others had first met her. But that didn't mean that he minded the trouble any. Besides Shay had nothing to apologize for. The fact that she had been hurt and gotten sick, wasn't her fault.

He leaned down and brushed his lips across her cheek in a feather light caress and growled softly. "Don't apologize. This wasn't your fault."

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Charlie was on her way to the elevator in the parking garage, carrying a bag of clean clothes and a few other things that she thought her daughter might want from home when she caught sight of someone that she had hoped that she would never see again and quickly ducked down behind a red car as she watched the young man walk up to the elevator across the way and push the button, the look on his face was dark and murderous.

_Oh shit._ Charlie thought as she quietly dug her cell phone out of her jacket pocket as she watched the man get into the elevator and disappear as she dialed Vinny's number and silently prayed that he was carrying the cell phone that she had got for him for his last birthday.

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Vinny and Modo had just walked out of the local grocery store carrying one bag full of stuffed toys and flowers for Shay and another bag full of books, puzzles, and some little nick knacks to keep their bro occupied so that he wouldn't chase them out of the hospital and kick their asses.

They figured the more he had to occupy his mind, the safer that they would be around him.

They were starting to put the stuff on their bikes when Vinny jumped as his cell phone started vibrating in his pocket, his tail thrashed around for a second as he dug it out and flipped it open. "Hello baby." He said cheerfully.

_"Vinny! Where the hell are you guys?"_ Charlie hissed in an slightly panicked, angry, hushed tone causing his ears to twitch a little bit.

"We're on our way to the hospital from the local store." Vinny said slowly, sounding as if he were talking to a simpleton or something. His tone made Charlie_ long_ to smack the hell out of him. But that was something that would have to wait until later.

Right now her baby was in trouble.

_"How quickly can you guys get here?"_

Vinny picked up on the anxiety in her tone this time and reached out and tapped Modo on the shoulder to get his attention and then put Charlie on the speaker so that they could both hear her. "What's up Charlie-babe?"

"One word. Tony. He's here. He looked pissed and he's after Shay!"

Vinny and Modo looked at each other and had to suppress the urge to laugh like lunatics. Man, oh man. If that guy was in the hospital to cause trouble, he was about to meet up with one hell of a bodyguard.

Cause Throttle would murder the son of a bitch in cold blood before he let him lay a finger on their little Shay darlin'.


	16. Chapter 16

Charlie quickly got off of the phone with Vinny and Modo since they weren't going to be any help, and dialed the hospital room number hoping that she would be able to warn Throttle before Tony did something to her little girl.

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Throttle was just starting to sit down when the phone next to Shay's hospital bed, rang. Shay's eyes fluttered open and she frowned as he reached out and grabbed the phone before it could make any more noise and silently debated on taking it off of the hook so that it wouldn't ring any more and disturb Shay as he answered it. "Hello."

"Throttle!" Charlie's panicked voice sounded from the other end of the line.

"Charlie?" Throttle said with a frown, picking up on her distress.

"Throttle, be quiet and let me say this-" Throttle stayed silent knowing that if something was going on then she wouldn't have time to explain everything if he kept interrupting her. "Tony is on his way to Shay's room. I think he's going to try and kill her!"

_I wondered just what kind of guy would attack a helpless girl._ Throttle thought as he stood back up and looked over at Shay again. She looked back at him, apparently finding the phone call more interesting than her body's need to rest at the moment. He gave her a small smile and ran his knuckles along the curve of her cheek, showing no outward sign of his anger and rage.

He felt no need to show her just how pissed he was at the moment. Especially since she wasn't the one who had angered him.

Charlie said a few more things and he felt his temper starting to seethe just below the surface of his skin. "Alright Charlie. I'll take care of it." Throttle said in a tense angry tone before he hung up the phone.

"Tony's coming for me isn't he?" Shay asked in a drowsy tone as he turned to look at her again. Throttle said nothing as he bent down and slipped an arm under her shoulders and the other under her legs and gently lifted her up off of the bed and cradled her against his chest.

"He is. But he isn't going to touch you without going through me first." Throttle said softly as he nuzzled her cheek.

He was beginning to understand a little bit about why Charlie had placed Shay in his hands as his girlfriend. It was because she needed someone to watch her back and keep her in one piece. He moved over to the farthest corner of the room and set her down next to the heater, in the floor and then grabbed the chair that he had been sitting in and dragged it across the floor and placed it in front of her.

It wouldn't do much to protect her if the son of a bitch was packing heat, but there was something to be said about having a guy that would literally take a bullet for you, as a bodyguard. He made sure that the chair hid her from anyone that might come through the door and then sat down, grabbed the curtain that separated the room and closed it then sat back and laced his fingers together and decided to wait.

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Tony walked out of the supply closet with the stolen bottle of insulin and needle in hand and walked down the hall to the room that the nurse had told him Shay was in. He couldn't wait to show that little bitch that she had made a mistake when she had disrespected him and come between him and Sara.

He should have set the slut up to be killed long before now. But he had found her spirit and defiance interesting. It had been fun to fight with her at first, because unlike Sara, she wasn't afraid of him.

Whenever he hit her. She hit him back. If he called her a cunt, she called him a ball less bastard and punched him in the face. If he made a lewd remark about her or her body she made an very _inventive_ remark about the pathetic size of his manhood and would leave him utterly speechless and red in the face.

Such spirit in a woman was rare. And so _very_ annoying if it wasn't taken in small doses. Which was part of the reason that he was going to kill her. The other reason was because she refused to be broken or beaten down by him no matter how many times he laid his hands on her.

He opened the door to Shay's room and stepped inside expecting Shay to be laying in the bed, heavily drugged or in pain or simply unconscious. But the bed was empty. He walked over to the curtain and reached out to pull it back so that he could check the rest of the room and met the angry stare of scarlet eyes a second before he was hit in the neck and felt something snake around his ankles and had his feet jerked out from under him-

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Shay curled herself up in a fetal position behind the chair and peeked over the arm of the chair at Throttle and Tony and cringed as Throttle settled himself on the smaller man's chest and wrapped his hands around Tony's neck and slowly started to squeeze. Tony made some gasping, choking sounds and tried to buck the alien off of him.

Shay silently debated with herself for a second about whether she should let Throttle kill Tony in cold blood or stop him and let Tony live. In the end, saving Tony's pathetic life won out and she got to her feet and staggered over to Throttle and grabbed his wrists and tried to pull his hands from around Tony's neck...


	17. Chapter 17

The world around him had faded away to red, leaving him focused on the human he was trying to kill. He was only vaguely aware of the small hands tugging at his wrists, trying to get him to let go. He was only vaguely aware that his tail was thrashing around, and hit the person those small hands belonged too.

He was only vaguely aware of the soft yelp that sounded next to his ear as the one trying to stop him fell over and looked at him with wide stricken eyes as blood ran down their cheek where his tail had split the skin open. "Throttle! Stop!"

Scarlet eyes flickered from the face of the human that he was killing to the pale face of the girl that he was trying to protect. Shay was looking at him like he was a monster or something. What the hell did she expect would happen? Her life was being threatened.

Protecting her was part of his job. She was his family. His girl by proxy thanks to her mothers manipulations.

And he was rather possessive of his _girls_ and his family. So this was simply nature taking it's course.

But she looked so scared- Her fear was cutting through the red fog in his mind, forcing him to take note of things that he would rather not notice. Like the blood on her right cheek and tears running down her pale face, her wide pretty eyes had a pained look to them that he had never seen before.

Had he put that pained look in her eyes?

His fingers spasmodically tightened a fraction then slowly loosened their grip on the bruised neck that they had been gripping and he found himself moving before he could think clearly. His body reacting instinctively as he got off of the pitiful human male and grabbed his girl up off of the floor and hugged her against his chest, her distressed causing his heart to ache strangely in his chest.

He needed to get her out of here. He needed to get her away from the male gasping for air and coughing on the threaded his fingers through her silken hair as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed, he could feel her body shaking against him and closed his eyes for a second as his mind started to shift back to normal. "Shay?" He said in a soft rough tone of voice that he hardly recognized as his own as he squeezed her a little bit.

Shay hiccuped against his shoulder and he sighed. Fuck. He must have screwed up big time for her to not answer him. "I'm sorry sweetheart." He hadn't meant to scare her. He hadn't meant to do anything to hurt her.

Her safety and well being was his number one priority. Always had been, always would be.

Which was the _only_ reason why he cast one last murderous look at Tony, finding it stupid that the male should live after what he had done, yet didn't question things further because he needed to get Shay as far away from this man and his foolishness, before he carefully pulled the IV needle out of Shay's arm and walked out the door.

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He wasn't really sure how he managed to pull it off, but he _did_ manage to get Shay out of the building just as his bros were pulling their bikes up to the curb to talk to Charlie who had worked herself into a little bit of a frenzy and was trying to drag Modo and Vinny into the building as Throttle was walking out.

Charlie stopped dead in her tracks and looked at the tan furred alien as he walked by with Shay cradled in his arms. "Throttle?"

"Lets go." Was all Throttle said as he walked towards the parking lot to Charlie's car and opened the passenger side door and set Shay down in the seat and gently pried her arms from around his neck and took a second to look over the bloody cut on her cheek before he buckled her in. She looked up at him for a second, her eyes rimmed red from crying, her cheeks flushed and he leaned in and kissed her temple wondering what he could do to make his blunder up to her, then stepped back and closed the door before turning to Charlie and telling her to take his bike before he climbed into the car and started it.


	18. Chapter 18

Throttle didn't exactly have a plan in mind when he started out of the visitors parking lot just down the way from the building in the isolated little lot just two hundred and fifty feet from the hospital front doors.

He didn't have an idea of what he was doing, where he was going. He just knew that he needed to get Shay away from the hospital and that piece of _shit_ that had come after her.

He pulled onto the road and glanced over at Shay and gritted his teeth as his hands tightened on the steering wheel. Shay was curled up in the seat with her knees drawn to her chest, her head buried against her knees and he could see the small tremors shaking her body.

He slowly unclenched one of his hands from around the steering wheel and reached out and started to set his hand on top of her head but stopped himself and quickly pulled his hand back and placed it back on the wheel and continued to drive until he got to the garage.

Once there he pulled up to the curb and stopped and parked the car and glanced over at Shay again as Charlie and his bros pulled up on the bikes. Reaching down he unbuckled himself and opened the door and got out as Charlie took off her helmet and set it aside. "Throttle what happened? You can't just take someone from the hospital! Everyone will think that Shay was kidnapped!"

"I couldn't let her stay there Charlie. Not with that son of a bitch there."

"I understand that, but other won't." Charlie said as he grabbed her and stuffed one of his hands into her pants pocket causing her to stiffen and make a little squeaking sound before he pulled his hand back out, the keys to the apartment held tightly in his hand before he let her go and then turned on his heel and walked up to the door and unlocked it.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Charlie cried as he disappeared into their home without so much as another word.

Modo came up behind her and put a hand on one of her shoulders, drawing her attention to him as he gave her a small smile and said, "He's probably planning to take her somewhere away from here so that that loser can't find her while she heals."

Charlie blinked at him, unsure of what to say or think. Then turned back around as Throttle came back out of the apartment carrying two large duffel bags and one smaller bag and loaded them into the car then softly closed the door and looked at them and said. "I'm taking Shay darlin out of the city for a little while. I have the cell phone and the charger so you can call us at any time."

"Where are you planning to go?"

"Dunno. But I'll try not to go too far. Maybe I can find a nice isolated cabin somewhere. Will you take care of my bike?"

"Sure thing bro. You just focus on taking care of Shay."

"Thanks man." Throttle said as he opened the driver side door and climbed back into the car and buckled himself in and glanced over at Shay again and noted that she seemed a little bit calmer now. Her legs weren't drawn against her chest anymore and though her head was still bowed and she was still shaking a little bit, but other wise seemed better.

He opened his mouth to say something to her, to maybe apologize again for everything that he had done that had scared her but instead closed his mouth and turned on the car then turned on the radio knowing that music helped her relax when she was feeling stressed.

He messed with the dial for a second and found a nice station that played some eighties and early to mid nineties music then waved at his bros and Charlie and then pulled the car away from the curb and started driving.


	19. Chapter 19

The drive out of the city lasted longer than Throttle would have liked.

But it was definitely worth it when he looked over at Shay three in a half hours in and noted that she was much calmer now and starting to doze off. Her _fear_ and _shock_ over the earlier events back at the hospital had finally drained away leaving her so mentally and physically exhausted that she could barely keep her eyes open.

Reaching out he grasped the shoulder strap of her seat belt and lifted it up over her head causing her to jerk awake and look at him wide eyed as he slipped his hand around her nape and gently tugged on her so that she just sort of toppled over in the seat.

"Throttle!" _Well-_ He mused humorlessly, at least she was finally talking to him again. She sounded startled to find herself laying on her side in the seat looking up at him as he untangled his fingers from her hair and placed it back on the wheel.

"Just lay down sweetheart."

"But-"

"No buts. Your tired aren't you?"

She got quiet and he glanced down at her and saw her shift slightly so that her injured wrist wouldn't be in the way and sighed. "Do you wanna use my leg as a pillow?" Throttle asked her softly as he reached out and started to turn the radio off when she grasped his arm and stopped him.

"No. I'm fine like this."

"The radio won't bother you?" _Do I bother you? _He wanted to ask but wasn't sure how he would react if she said yes. So he stayed silent and put his hand back on the wheel while Shay curled up in the seat and somehow managed to doze off.

It took another two hours and forty five minutes to finally reach the outer limits of the city and turn off of the main highway so that they would end up cutting through the county a little bit. He picked the direction that he was totally sure had several small towns, and cabins that were rented out and drove an extra three or four miles to the nearest town before pulling the car into a store parking lot and parked it.

He needed to grab some things for them to eat, and some stuff to treat her wounds to keep them from getting infected. He pulled the keys from the ignition and started to reach down to wake her up so that he could take her with him, but stopped when he realized that she wasn't exactly in any condition to go grocery shopping and simply decided to let her sleep. He'd lock the doors so that she wouldn't have to worry about someone taking the car with her in it, figuring that he would only be gone for about ten minutes or so.

He was in the store for twenty minutes.

Something that_ irked_ him greatly since he had an unconscious and helpless girl waiting for him in the car. But looking for stuff that could be used for basic first aid had taken him longer than getting the food because he'd had to run down three different people to ask them where this or that was located.

He sighed tiredly as he pushed his buggy out to the car and dug out the keys. Now all he had to do was find a cabin or something to rent, then he needed to unpack the food and change the bandages on Shay's wrist then feed her and put her to bed.


End file.
